


Out Of Chaos

by ruthmakesstuff (orphan_account)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Trespasser DLC spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 18:17:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ruthmakesstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Hope is springing up from this old ground<br/>Out of chaos life is being found in you</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Solas has thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out Of Chaos

The world looked different to Solas.

It had, in fairness, looked different to him ever since he had awoken. The people here were so detached from the Fade, from their lives, from each other. He was able to pass himself off as a scholar while sharing the most minimal of information because the people here knew nothing - not even the mages knew more than the barest minimum. 

This was a different kind of different, however - what had once seemed bland, expressionless, empty, he now saw through a different light, with a certain kind of new curiosity. Lights seemed brighter, colours more rich. Even Skyhold - poor, fallen Skyhold - had an essence about it that hadn’t been there before.

He didn’t have to look far to see the reason why. Ellana Lavellan, the fierce Dalish mage that had stumbled out of the breach back at Haven. Even in shackles she was demanding answers, refusing to accept things she knew not to be true. She fought to understand and overcome the unfamiliar, not let it overwhelm her, and it was a quality that Solas had to find admirable.

She had equal disregard for the titles of ‘Inquisitor’ and ‘Herald’ both. The Inquisition was a Chantry organisation - she was Dalish, she believed in the Elvhen gods. All that the Chantry had done to people like her was strip them of their culture and alienate them from their people. She’d never been to a city alienage, but stories filtered back to the camps, of elves that had rejected their origins, knew nothing of their language, lived their lives among the shemlen who would treat them with disrespect and violence regardless. As for ‘Herald’? Herald? Of Andraste? The messenger for a religious figure who never existed? Were she even to ever have existed, why would she have chosen an elf to speak her word? She took the former title grudgingly - there were people who needed her, she could understand that - but Herald? Never. She would neither reject her culture or identity to appease the pompous of Thedas nor offer false hope to the needy. 

Her anger, her dissatisfaction, her refusal to be downtrodden - these made her unique. Yet, despite a nature that others would call antagonistic, she inspired hope. She created something beautiful, functional and strong out of chaos. Not only did Solas respect and admire her, he… well. How else he felt was another matter entirely.

She caused him pain, though, too. He winced to see the valasillin - the slave markings - marring her beautiful face. She wore them with pride, the markings of Mythal, despite being so detached from the old Elvhen. He pitied her for being Dalish - they had such a crude appropriate of Elvhen culture and language. He wanted to correct her, for her to know, to understand what she was missing. All that he had seen, all that he had known - lost, but for these sad, misshapen fragments that the Dalish clung to in lieu of anything real of their own. They would never find Arlathan, never recreate it, and what they had instead was a bastardisation of history and legend.

Still, he thought, better a Dalish than a city elf. The archer, Sera, he couldn’t stand her. She was immature, childish, and short-sighted. She could incite real change, a rebellion with her Red Jennies, but she was interested only in petty jabs and stealing breeches. On a superficial level, you could compare Ellana and Sera - they were both hotheaded and provocative - but whereas Ellana inspired change, Sera pulled pranks and picked fights. He’d taken pity on her at first - torn from her culture and origins, what options did she have but to lash out? But she’d had no interest in his sympathy, or his teachings, or the Fade.

Oh, the Fade. That was the most torturous thing about this new world. Not the Fade itself, but the Veil. When he’d first created it, the world responded to trauma - as if they had all just had a limb critically injured. Now he observed a people who walked with a limp as if it was all they’d ever known. The wound was no longer fresh and painful, but nobody but him could see it _fester_.

They all believed they were happy, though - blind to what could have been. They were like children, in his eyes. Naive, and lacking in understanding of the world greater than what they could see. They didn’t even care to _try_ to understand the world greater than what they could see. Except, again, for Ellana. She walked with the same limp as all the rest, but she came to him, she asked about the Fade, about what he knew. The Fade, to a certain extent, is what you expect to find there. When he had taken her there before, she’d seen the same beautiful lands that he had. She could have just failed to see anything - chosen to close her mind off, as so many people did. But she did not.

He hoped, in some way, that he could save her in the end. If he could not? Then, well. He hoped it would be painless.


End file.
